Famitsu is one of the biggest Japanese magazine publishers, selling millions of copies every month and often getting features from the biggest game developers of all time, having previously had columns where they interviewed Masahiro Sakurai, among others.
This makes it all the more surprising to see them start heavily featuring Western indies.
This week, the Famitsu main cover boasts some beautiful new art for Sea of Stars and primarily focuses on covering that game.
This comes after the December 7th issue prominently featuring Stray, with that cute cat as the cover’s central part. It’s cool to see this massive magazine covering our best indies, so let’s see what they’re saying about Sea of Stars.
Famitsu’s Sea of Stars Issue
To be clear, the issue is releasing on November 30th, so we don’t quite know what exactly it’ll contain just yet, but after (very roughly) translating the text on the cover, we can see it’ll be an overview of the game, its great sales, some interviews with the developers, and some concept art. This is just before the game’s physical release on Switch in Japan on December 7th.
On top of this, they’ll also be covering a bit of “Dragon Quest Monsters 3: The Journey of a Demon Prince and Elf”, which is the real title of a real game, and I hate it.
Aside from that, though, this article will focus entirely on covering Sea of Stars, doing a questionnaire with the developers, and an interview with Thierry Boulanger.
I will say it’s just quite remarkable seeing Famitsu taking a significant interest in Western Indies recently.
It was quite rare to see them pop up on the front cover (Aside from Undertale, which got multiple since it’s incredibly popular in Japan), so seeing two getting covered in the same month is a nice change of pace. They can get more prominent developers on the hook, but they still choose to go for our favorite indies.
That said, we might be seeing more Famitsu coverage of our favorite little indie projects, specifically those with a worldwide reach and appeal.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see them cover more of Deltarune once that’s released, but other smaller projects could pop up in this massive gaming publication, and that’s neat.
Further Reading
If you want to hear more about Sea of Stars ahead of the Famitsu coverage or read up on your favorite indies, stick here for more!
Sea of Stars Review – Eclipses Everything That’s Come Before
Sea of Stars Hardest Bosses Ranked
Stray PS5 Review – A Phenomenal Feline Adventure
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